Most Likely to Succeed
by Sachie Yoritomo
Summary: Kurama and Shizuru go missing, and everyone else gets to go on an adventure... in Canada. Loosely based on the Five Iron Frenzy song Oh Canada, written from Botan's perspective. It is, as you may imagine, slightly silly.


As promised, the other KurxShiz fic I told you all about. It's a little outrageous. I won't deny it. I know it's a little long, but it's a quick read I PROMISE. I hope you all have as much fun reading this as I had writing it- thanks once again to Teddypookins my awesomesauce beta for the feedback. As I said, this is based off of the song **Oh Canada** by Five Iron Frenzy. **I really suggest you listen to the song before reading**, as it won't seem like I was on hallucinogenic drugs when I wrote this. Probably. Also, done from Botan's perspective.

Please go read and review Dream No More, because I really worked hard on it and want some feedback. /shameless selfpromotion

Merry Christmas to you all, even if you don't celebrate Christmas. SO THERE.

* * *

Most Likely To Succeed

Sachie Yoritomo

* * *

Well, you see, it's a very interesting story. Nobody had even seen it coming, especially not Kuwabara… nobody except me that is. I've known about what's been happening the whole time. Perhaps I should begin at the beginning, though; that's always a good place to start.

About six months ago, Kurama and Shizuru had begun dating in secret. They were both through with school and living professional lives (in Kurama's case, one that was frequently interrupted by the call of Reikai), but neither seemed to have found someone that they hit it off with. Now, I'm not real sure about the VERY beginning, since it was, of course, secret; but what I do know is that they essentially met up at the mall one day and made a habit out of it. Of course, this evolved, and after a few weeks they'd have dinner once a week and see a movie occasionally… you know, the typical dating fare. Well, this went on for a while, but for some reason they never bothered to tell anyone else they were dating. Why? I dunno. Maybe one of them thought it would cause a riot in our little group, which, ironically, it has.

This afternoon, Kuwabara came home to find a note on his door that said, 'Getting married and going to Canada. Be back next week. –Shizuru'. Needless to say, since her relationship with Kurama was a secret, he took this news rather badly, and he quickly went to Yusuke, who called Keiko and then the three of them went to the temple, where Yukina got a hold of me to bring Kurama and Hiei. Well, I went to go get Kurama and found Hiei standing outside his house. I asked him, of course, where Kurama was and he said, "Gone, you foolish woman." Well, that was an interesting development (at this time I only knew Shizuru was missing).

"Well, then I guess you should come with me and tell the others he's gone too." I told him. He looked at me funny like I should tell him who else was missing, so I said, "Shizuru's gone too." He looked almost amused. "Did you know about them, then?"

He nodded. "The fox was bad at keeping secrets from me."

"Well, I'm pretty sure they left to together."

"Hn."

I sighed, patting the space on the oar beside me. "Come on, we better make sure the rest of them don't hurt themselves." He smirked, hopped on, and we left.

When we arrived it was almost dark, and Keiko and Yukina were outside waiting for us. "Where's Kurama?" Keiko asked as they escorted us inside.

"You'll see," I told her.

"I'm glad you're here," Yukina said, concerned, "Kazuma is very distressed."

They entered, and sure enough, Kuwabara was fit to pull out his own hair. Not one to lie in wait, he was busily searching on the internet for the cheapest plane tickets to Canada he could find for them all, and calculating just how much money he had to get them there, which presumably wasn't enough..

Yusuke stood behind him, giving him sound advice, but very much in a Yusuke fashion. "Don't be stupid Kuwabara! We can't just go flying into Canada!"

"She's my sister, Urameshi! I can't just leave her!"

"She went there on her own! It wasn't like she was kidnapped. And besides, we don't have any idea where she went. We can't just pick somewhere and then check the whole country for her! It's a really big place. And it's really cold."

"He has a point, you know," I said.

The looked up. "Oh hey, Botan, how's it… Wait a minute where's Kurama?" Yusuke asked me.

"He's gone also," I told them.

"Okay," Yusuke said, "Now I'm worried."

"See Urameshi! Now we have to go!"

They began to argue again, and Keiko, Yukina and I sighed in unison. "Listen, boys," I said, interrupting them, "I'll go see what I can learn from Spirit World intelligence, and I'll ask Koenma if he can get us a way there that won't bankrupt us all." I materialized my oar. "I'll be back later tonight, but be ready to go at any time, alright?"

They nodded at me, but Hiei scoffed, though he said nothing. Kuwabara began to argue with him, and I sighed again then left.

I went to back to Kurama's house first, to see if I could find out where they'd gone. I lucked out, and after checking the history on his web browser (a trick Keiko had taught me, I imagine she uses it to keep track of Yusuke), I found Vancouver coming up several times. I left promptly afterward, and went to Koenma. I explained our situation, and he decided it seemed like a good training exercise, though not necessary otherwise. He agreed to get us there and put us up for a few nights. "Listen, Botan. You may have to lead them on a wild goose chase, but try not to let them find Kurama and Shizuru. That could turn out messy."

"I understand," I said, and returned to Ningenkai. I arrived back at the temple just after 11 pm, where oddly enough, Hiei greeted me from the shadows near the front steps.

"And I suppose that you and Koenma both want me to go on this little adventure too, don't you?"

"Well, yes, I do," I replied, "you might gain something from the experience, and it's always good for the team to work together."

"Hn. Teamwork. This is just glorified babysitting, woman, and you know it."

"Maybe, Hiei," I replied quietly, almost whispering, "but I'm almost certain Yukina and Keiko will be going. I'm sure you don't want to leave them unsupervised."

He glowered at me. "How long?"

"Five days, at the most, including travel time. I hear the forests are lovely."

"Hn," he replied before he strolled leisurely past me and out of sight.

I walked into the temple, where the rest of the group was still assembled. "We're leaving at four o'clock tomorrow morning for the airport. Better get some rest, guys."

And that's how we ended up on this darn plane going to Canada. Somehow we'd all managed to pack for a few days, although Hiei didn't check a bag or anything. Does anyone else wonder where he gets clean underpants from? Actually, we had to fight him tooth and nail to put his sword in Yusuke's suitcase at check in for the duration of the flight. He said something needing to use it, but then the airport security people got WAY too interested and he was more or less forced to part with it, which wasn't a pretty sight, I assure you.

Anyway, it's ten a.m. (our flight was delayed two hours) and I'm sitting between Hiei and Kuwabara on this darn plane and I just REALLY want to take a nap. There's only like what, five more hours on this flight? Part of me is actually quite afraid of what's gonna happen when we get there. I mean, Keiko and I are the only ones that speak English well enough to do any good (Keiko assures me they don't speak French in the part of Canada we're going to); I think Kuwabara and Yusuke just learned how to say vulgar things and curse words and then stopped caring. And seriously, judging from how the rest of the morning has been, I think Hiei is bound to get arrested. Oi vey. I really should have left him home.

Okay, you know what? I'm done listening to these two argue. I'm putting my music player on and going to sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile, elsewhere…

Shizuru awoke next to Kurama in their cabin in the woods… in the middle of the night? She groaned, and he stirred beside her. "What time is it here?" he asked.

"What time is it at home?" she replied as she rolled over and checked the clock on her nightstand, which cheerily blinked the time of 2:37 at her in large red numbers. (AN: I really have no idea which way the time change goes, but this makes mores sense than the afternoon, so we'll go with it, kay? Kay.) She attempted briefly to calculate the time difference before she decided she just really didn't care. 'I want a cigarette,' she thought to herself, but she glanced to the sliding glass doors across the room that lead to a porch of some kind and saw ice crystals had formed around its perimeter, which meant it was really, really cold. She groaned softly as she turned back over to face him. "Remind me who had the idea to go to Canada?"

He stared at the ceiling for a moment before he answered. "I think you did," he replied quietly.

"Damn."

"Why?"

"Because it's probably 20 below out there, and I want a cigarette!"

He chuckled at her, and distractions abounded. The end.

* * *

Not really. Just the end of that scene. Stupid honeymooners.

Anyway, this flight was the worst idea ever! Someone decided it was a good idea to give Yukina two screwdrivers, and now she's singing goofy songs at random intervals. Actually, I wanna know who taught her those. Some of them are pretty funny. Kuwabara has determined that he's going to be attacked by marmosets, even though Keiko has told him incessantly for the last half an hour that marmosets are native to Brazil, and that they do NOT live in Canada. Yusuke seems pretty convinced that he's gonna wrestle a free-running Yak, although Keiko and I have both told him that there aren't yaks in Canada either. Frankly, I think he has them confused with the Yeti, but either way, he's an idiot.

On the other hand, I'm really, really, really glad we made Hiei check his sword. He seems pretty fit to kill right about now, not that the absence of his sword stops that or anything, but I've never seen him twitch involuntarily like this. It's pretty hysterical, actually. Oh, and now he's glaring at me. Probably reading my thoughts again. Cut that out, Hiei! I mean seriously, don't you have something better to do? I really can't figure out why you pay so much attention to what I'm thinking in the first place.

Whatever. We should be landing in about an hour, assuming Hiei doesn't make the plane spontaneously combust or anything. And Hiei, if you're listening to my thoughts again, DON'T GET ANY IDEAS!

* * *

You're never going to believe this. We gave Hiei his sword back after the flight, and then he threatened the cab driver that ticked him off by saying 'eh' all the time after we'd gotten out of the cab at the hotel, and he really did almost get arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Apparently, they're called Mounties, which amused Yusuke and Kuwabara far too much for my liking but oh well. On the way here, Yusuke claims he saw a group of men walking down the street in plaid skirts, but I think he was making it up. In any case, it's been quite a challenge getting Yukina into the hotel room, as she is still rather intoxicated.

Koenma got us a suite with two queen beds in the bedroom and a living room with a convertible couch. Keiko declared she'd share one of the beds with Yukina in case she needed any help. Kuwabara and Yusuke were both annoyed with this arrangement though for different reasons; Yusuke because since we all knew Hiei wouldn't be sharing a bed with ANYBODY, and so therefore he had to share the bed with Kuwabara, and Kuwabara because he wanted to keep an all night vigil by her side (a plan that was contested by all, apart from Yukina but I really don't think she was paying attention anyway).

That left Hiei and I on the other side of the door all by ourselves, a fact that tickled Yusuke and Kuwabara to death, but I wasn't concerned. I was certain that he'd take the windowsill anyway and that I'd get the whole couch to myself.

It was four in the afternoon, but with the time change, we'd been up for almost an entire day and we were all pretty much exhausted. Even so, somebody had told me once that the closer you get to using local time with your sleep schedule the better off you'll be, and so I made Kuwabara and Yusuke go and get some groceries for us from the convenience store down the way. Speaking of convenient, Koenma had gotten us some Canadian money to use while we were here. Turns out they don't accept yen, though I'm not surprised by that.

By this time, Yukina had entered into the 'hangover' phase, and Keiko and I began to unpack luggage trying to find her some aspirin. It took us a little while, but we managed to turn up some Tylenol and a half litre bottle of water, which we made her drink at least one and a half of before the boys got back. Poor Yukina. I don't think she'll try that again, though.

When the boys returned, they did bring what I told them to, but had acquired some oddities along the way.

"Check it out you guys!" Kuwabara declared, pulling a bag out of his groceries. "They have milk in a bag!"

"Yeah, and I found a slurpee made out of venison!" Yusuke added excitedly.

"Wait," Keiko said. "Venison? Like, deer?"

"That's what it said, yeah."

"Are you SURE that's what it said?"

"Yeah I'm sure! It sounded cool and all, but it tastes real weird. I'm glad I only got the trial size."

Keiko and I sighed and shook our heads, but the twins looked awfully confused; neither of them had any idea what a slurpee was, and I'm pretty sure Yukina hadn't heard of venison before. Hiei, being the strong silent type didn't pursue the subject despite his curiosity, and simply hned. Yukina, while she seemed at least a little interested, decided she no longer had the mental capacity today and would ask about it tomorrow.

It was nearly five by this time, and I managed to coax an hour of card games out of the group (Hiei, being the party pooper he is, abstained from our "foolishness") before we finally turned in, with no complaints. Well, at least not very loud ones.

This worked out fantastically until at 9:30 an intercom went off in the hotel (I didn't even know hotels had those) saying that the heat had gone out, and that hotel staff would be coming around to distribute extra blankets and space heaters to the rooms. I was pretty glad for this, because when I sat up and the blankets fell down, it was pretty darn cold in that room.

I answered the door when the bellboy arrived hauling a large cart of woolen blankets. He was a cute teenager, perhaps seventeen, but he looked exhausted and frazzled from dealing with the people down the hall.

"How many?" he asked.

I answered him with 3, but he didn't quite seem to understand me so I held up my fingers. He nodded, and handed me 4 blankets.

"One extra, just in case," he said, a little slowly (I think he figured out that I wasn't a native English speaker). "Would you like a space heater?" I nodded and he handed me one and wished me goodnight before I could request a second for the other room.

I shrugged it off and brought our gifts in and started handing them out. I gave one blanket each pair in the bedroom, and decided to give them the heater and tough out the night. While I was in there I made sure that everyone was sleeping where they were supposed to be, and they were.

When I returned from the room and shut the door, Hiei was sitting on the unfurled sofa bed next to where I had been sleeping, with his head laying on the back cushions and his arms folded across his lap propping up his sword. I gave him a quizzical look as I walked toward the bed and shivered in the increasing cold. 'You'll thank me' he said telepathically.

I stopped next to the bed, and watched as he closed his eyes and no longer paid any attention to me. I frowned a little at him, but then shrugged and got under the covers. I found that the part that was closest to him was already warming up from his body heat. 'That's nice of him,' I thought, 'Uncharacteristically nice.' I shrugged this idea off as well. "Thank you," I told him quietly, and drifted off.

* * *

Well, Keiko and I acquired snowshoes for Yusuke and Kuwabara. Hiei just glared at us when we offered to get him some, and I had my oar to fly on while we searched, and Keiko and Yukina had decided not to go, for rather obvious reasons. To be terribly honest with you, Keiko came because she could help translate and Yukina came because it wouldn't be nice to leave her out. I wasn't expecting them to do much on this trip.

Anyway, we all set out into the cold. Someone, though I'm not entirely certain who at this point, decided that we shouldn't look in the city and that we needed to go and search the woods outside of town. I was fine with that, and although I'm still not sure it was the best plan, I went with it. I'm really certain that no one would take their honeymoon in the Canadian wilderness in early winter, but hey, I guess that kind of thing could be romantic, if you're into that. Hiei's just jumping around on the trees, but Yusuke and Kuwabara are having a bit of a tough time with these snowshoes. I guess they're harder than they look; Hiei and I have to wait up for them a lot. It's a source of quite a bit of tension and more than a few insults between the boys.

"Man, this is so lame!" Yusuke said, panting after having to haul himself out after tripping over a fallen log covered in enough snow to hide it from view. "Stupid Canada! With its stupid trees!"

"Man, Urameshi, if we were lumberjacks… we could be rich!"

"Shut up Kuwabara! Grandma can probably hear you from all the way over here and come up with all kinds of training that involves trees! Man, I hate trees. I hate hiking. And I hate hiking over trees!"

Oh dear.

"Oh my!" I exclaimed. "A deer!" Then I looked closer at what I saw a little ways off in the distance. "No, that's a moose!"

"Mooses!" Kuwabara exclaimed excitedly, as another wandered into view. He tried, in his excitement, to run up and pet one, but managed to fall into the deep snow due to his overall lack of experience in snowshoes. He was able to scare them off that way, and the rest of day continued in much the same fashion; lots of falling, waiting, arguing, and very little productivity.

* * *

The next day was rather uneventful. In the morning we all split up to search the city for Kurama's energy. Kuwabara and Yusuke, for whatever reason had seemingly forgotten that Hiei was a telepath, and could have found Kurama with ease immediately, but neither of us was going to tell them that. I, for one, was really having a blast watching them on their wild goose chase. Of course, it was a well justified wild goose chase and really they were doing quite well with their training exercises.

Yusuke's plan for they day, as I touched on earlier, was to split up and see what we could find on Kurama, since the only one of us familiar enough with Shizuru to find her was her brother. Then we'd meet up in the afternoon to discuss what we had found, regroup and go from there.

Well, Yusuke, Kuwabara and I all showed up to our meeting spot. Hiei didn't. We were all pretty concerned, especially when an hour went by and he never turned up. When he was an hour and a half late, we decided that we needed to start searching for him.

Using the detective items I just so happened to bring along in case of such an event, we managed to track him down. After the whole 'kidnapped Yusuke' business, I actually had Yukina acquire some of his hair for me so that the demon compass would work without a hitch. Thank goodness for my ingenuity!

Anyway, when we tracked him down, he was about five miles into the woods and oh my goodness, it was the most hysterical sight. Hiei was sitting in a tree, glowering at a group of what appeared to be sled dogs that had escaped into the wild. Some of them even had harnesses. When the dogs saw us approaching, they growled at us and even tried to protect him, like he was their puppy! I'd only seen him this agitated when Kuwabara hits on his sister and when we forced him to part with his sword on the plane.

I told Yusuke and Kuwabara to head back to the hotel, which they did with surprisingly little protest. I materialized my oar, and flew over the dogs and up to Hiei, who was positively seething, and the dogs were barking like mad underneath us.

I sniggered, and Hiei of course seethed, on account of the facts that he not only needed to be 'rescued' but that he also had to ride on the oar, which I know for a FACT that he hates. Our ride back to the hotel was silent, except for the barking of the dogs growing quieter as the distance increased.

* * *

The next several days passed in a similar manner, and before we knew it, it was time to go. I'm not really sure what Keiko and Yukina did while we spent 5 days chasing down our missing duo, but they seemed fine when we were leaving.

Somehow, I had made the mistake of thinking that leaving Japan would be the hardest part of this trip.

I was sorely mistaken.

We once again had to take Hiei's sword away when we got to the airport which was even harder this time. Yukina was on the verge of tears before he handed it over. As a mental note, never take Hiei on public transit with metal detectors. Ever.

As I looked forward to yet another looong plane trip across the Pacific (on which I decided that perhaps **I** should drink the booze before anyone else does), the boys decided to visit a gift shop. Inside, there were red maple leaves everywhere. Which is somewhat strange, because…

"Does anyone else find it odd that everything in here is a maple leaf? I didn't see a single maple tree while I was wandering through that forest, and I was wandering for a long time," Yusuke said.

"Hn. It's probably because you were wandering in circles, detective." Hiei replied.

"Heh, yeah, says the shrimp that was almost eaten by DOGS!" Kuwabara retorted.

Hiei seethed, and Yusuke and Kuwabara giggled, and just when I was certain that all hell was about to break loose, dear sweet Yukina came to our rescue.

"What's that?" she inquired, pointing to a small, brown stuffed animal. None of the boys had any idea and returned to their glaring contest (Hiei would win- he always does), but Keiko picked it up and examined the tag on it.

"It says it's a lemming," she informed us.

"Oh," Yukina replied. "That's very nice." I'm sure she hadn't a clue what a lemming was other than the stuffed creature Keiko held in her hands, but usually that seemed like enough to satisfy her.

However, it seemed that Hiei had triumphed in the glaring war, and now Kuwabara and Yusuke were interested in the stuffed thing. "Hey, aren't these the things that commit mass suicide by jumping off of cliffs?" Yusuke asked.

Keiko rolled her eyes at him. "Of all the times you pay attention in class, it's to learn about lemming runs…"

Yukina seemed somewhat concerned upon the acquisition of this knowledge, Hiei somewhat interested (and he would be too…), and Kuwabara, once again, was convinced that he'd really missed out on something very important.

"WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE A LEMMING RUN!" He shouted, and he was nearly inconsolable, demanding that we not leave the country until we had seen one, until a smooth, familiar voice broke into our conversation.

"Actually, Kuwabara, lemmings don't commit mass suicide by running off of cliffs. Additionally, they are native to northern Europe, and to my knowledge don't actually live in Canada."

We all turned, and standing not 5 feet away were Kurama and Shizuru. Holding hands. Looking entirely too happy.

Suddenly, everyone else present came into the knowledge that Hiei and I already had. Hiei, being the smart ass he is, just smirked. Yusuke, Keiko and Yukina were struck dumb, and Kuwabara was open mouthed, looking back and forth between the pair. He looked oddly like a goldfish out of water, staring down a cat.

"You…" he said, pointing at Kurama, who nodded, "and you…" he said to his sister, who also nodded.

"Got married. Yes." She said, completing his sentence for him. Kuwabara promptly fainted.

* * *

Well, after his fainting spell, Kuwabara seemed to take to the news quite well, which kind of surprised me. He did want to sit by himself on the plane, which concerned Yukina a bit, but I told her he just needed to think about some things and that he'd be okay.

As it turned out, Yusuke, Keiko and the newlyweds sat together and played cards and chatted in the center of the plane. Hiei, Yukina and I were the aisle from them; Hiei had the window seat, I was in the middle and Yukina had the aisle, and Kuwabara was one row ahead of us in the row behind first class.

We were just about to take off when William Shatner boarded the plane and sat across the aisle from Kuwabara. I knew we were in trouble when he got those shining stars in his eyes. He turned to good old Captain Kirk and made the star trek sign with his hand and said, "May the force be with you."

I bowed my head and cried a little. "I need a drink," I said to no one in particular.

To my left, Hiei patted my hand on the armrest and gave me a knowing look as if to say, 'I feel your pain,' and then turned to stare back out the window.

THE END.

Note: I am well aware that the climate I have described here does not actually occur in Vancouver, Canada. To get this climate, I would have had to ship them several thousand miles inland and further north, and then the reality of that being a really bleeding long way from Japan becomes a bit of a problem. So yes, I am well aware that the weather in Vancouver is nothing like this. We're all going to have to get over it. It was really just the most convenient place to go. If it bothers you, pretend they went to Yellowknife. I try not to be a complete idiot, really.

Note II: When this was first published, I was under the (mistaken) impression that the name of the song I based this story off of was Most Likely to Succeed, as I have known it to be for the last several years according to iTunes and my iPod. However, I have now found that I was INCORRECT. **The real name of the song is Oh Canada.** I really truly apologize for any confusion. I'm not going to change the title as of now. Sorry everyone!

I hope you like this story anyway. Reviewers will receive cookies! R&R

~SJY


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